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Confessions of the University of Chicago

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“Go to Italy, be a cobbler” seems to be one of the most popular pieces of graffiti in the collection. It was Explored on Flickr in October 2007, and usedonfivedifferentblogs (to date). It’s even on the mini-buttons I ordered for the book release.

But Val Archambeau suggested on the Crescat Graffiti Facebook page that it might be a reference to “Pretty Little Mistakes” by Heather Mcelhatton– a grown-up choose-your-own-adventure novel where you end up working as a cobbler in Italy in one storyline.

I kinda hope it’s a coincidence. Too many times I’ve Googled phrases from creative-sounding graffiti only to discover they’re (possibly somewhat mangled) quotes from songs or movies.

It also makes me wonder if the exhortation to chant with the monks in Tibet also comes from somewhere other than the tortured mind of a college student.

The proof copy of Crescat Graffiti, Vita Excolatur: Confessions of the University of Chicago came in the mail yesterday. On the whole, I’m really pleased with it. There’s a few changes that I need to make in the text (spelling “acknowledgments” consistently, fixing page references that changed after I wrote the text, adding a few more explanatory notes, aligning my headers consistently) but nothing major.

<In the “Time” section, though, a couple of the photographs fell victim to the shadows the A-level lights cast on the whiteboards, so I’m replacing a spread there with one in the “Motivation” section. Sadly, among the victims is one of my favorite pieces of graffiti– a timeline for becoming a math genius in 13 hours.

At the moment, I’m mostly done with the revisions, and figure I’ll order the new proof before the end of the weekend. At that rate, I’ll get the revised proof by the end of next week. If everything looks good I’ll place a bulk order (for selling signed copies through this site) and get it submitted to Amazon. On that timetable, I figure it’ll be published sometime around the week of November 16th.